Citizen Review Board Wants Deputy To Testify

The Orange Sheriff's Office And The Police Union Say The Panel Doesn't Have Subpoena Power.

April 1, 2005|By Henry Pierson Curtis, Sentinel Staff Writer

The Orange County Sheriff's Office, the Central Florida Police Benevolent Association and the county Citizen Review Board are squaring off over the independent panel's power to question deputies accused of abuse.

For the first time, the review board is seeking a subpoena to force a deputy sheriff to respond to allegations of brutality after the deputy failed to appear Monday at the board's monthly meeting.

"It has no weight," sheriff's Capt. Steve Hougland, the agency's liaison to the board, said Thursday. "Deputies are not compelled to appear or testify . . . Our policy does not require them to do so."

John Park, president of the Central Florida PBA, released a statement late Thursday afternoon that said state Attorney General Charlie Crist restricted police review boards' investigative powers last year.

"The PBA and other parties are evaluating and will be addressing several CRB `subpoena power' concerns that are currently under review from our PBA legal counsel as well as other legal teams," he said in a written statement.

The heightening tension arose early last year after the review board took a more critical posture after nine years of being viewed as a rubber stamp for the agency's disciplinary process. Sheriff Kevin Beary and some board members considered the shift part of an anti-agency agenda.

The tension peaked in November when Beary did not acknowledge the board when it challenged the exoneration of a deputy who shot an unarmed suspect. A grand jury also cleared the deputy of wrongdoing.

In the latest impasse, Deputy Steve Jenny did not attend Monday's meeting to counter testimony that he beat up a handcuffed suspect last year.

In Jenny's absence, Jonathan Reed, a teenager with a long history of arrests, gave the board an uncontested account of brutality. Reed said that Jenny, a deputy assigned to supervise Reed's probation for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, beat him May 7, partly for violating curfew.

Reed's testimony to the board included an accusation that Jenny dumped him out of a wheelchair while Reed waited to be treated at Health Central hospital. The sheriff's internal-affairs unit previously exonerated Jenny after reviewing hospital security-camera tapes that showed the teen threw himself from the wheelchair, records show.

"Those are the kind of questions we need to ask the officer to figure out what really happened," said Orlando lawyer Dean Mosley, whom Beary appointed to the board. "We can't really ask those questions unless the officer shows up."

All complaints heard by the board have been investigated first by the sheriff's internal-affairs unit, the Office of Professional Standards.

On Thursday, Jenny did not respond to a request to explain why he did not appear before the board. Nor did the sheriff's legal staff respond to a request to explain the agency's position on the review board's power to subpoena deputies.

The agency has decided to wait for the subpoena to be served and then let Jenny's union handle his defense, sheriff's spokesman Jim Solomons said.

"Because a subpoena coming from the [Citizen Review Board] is uncharted waters -- it's something that has never happened -- we're going to let the PBA basically take the lead in representing the deputy's concerns and interests, and we'll see what happens," he said.

Created by the County Commission in 1995, the review board's charter gave it the power "to subpoena witnesses, administer oaths, take testimony and require production of evidence. Any person who fails or refuses to obey a lawful order or subpoena issued in the exercise of these powers shall be guilty of a misdemeanor upon conviction and shall be punished according to law," records show.